


Set to Make Some Decisions

by roswyrm



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: (but its only minor), Big Bang Challenge, Gen, Hair Dyeing, Haircuts, Internalized Transphobia, Not Canon Compliant, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-16 03:31:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20181223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roswyrm/pseuds/roswyrm
Summary: title taken from the weike wang quote, “Another theory about hair, not from my mother, but from the best friend. A woman who cuts her hair drastically is set to make some decisions.” this is a very big change from the working title,snip snoop snap





	Set to Make Some Decisions

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from the weike wang quote, “Another theory about hair, not from my mother, but from the best friend. A woman who cuts her hair drastically is set to make some decisions.” this is a very big change from the working title, _snip snoop snap_

Sasha doesn’t really care about her hair. (Like, she _should,_ because she’s a girl and girls are supposed to care about that sort of thing, but she doesn’t.) But there’s this splotch, just at the base of her neck that grows in white and brittle and damaged ever since she almost died from that puddle thing in Rome. It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t so obvious. 

(She didn’t even know it was there until one day she turned around and Grizzop asked, “Has your hair always been like that?” 

“Like what?”  
“Bleached at the back. When’d you do that?”

She didn’t. The puddle had done it for her.)

She’s only just managed to get one of Hamid’s mirrors and look at it in the hotel they’re in now, though and. It’s ugly. Sasha doesn’t really care about that, _pretty_ is more of Hamid’s thing, but she doesn’t– she should care that it’s ugly. She really, really wants to care about how it looks. But really, the most annoying thing about it is that it doesn’t match the rest of her hair. It makes _that_ bit more noticeable against the rest of her head, and more noticeable means _bad._ Sasha sighs and clicks the mirror shut.

She doesn’t want to ask. This is something she should be able to do, right? Like, she’s been cutting her own hair since forever, but this is. This makes her feel guilty. Her hair’s already so short, and she doesn’t (shouldn’t) like it short. She doesn’t (shouldn’t) want to cut it even shorter. She’ll just dye it, or something. Bleach it, maybe? She… doesn’t know. She doesn’t know how hair works, or what you’re supposed to do with it! She’s never had this kind of choice available to her until recently, always stuck with someone who told her how to be, how to hold herself, how to hold herself _back._ She doesn’t know how to ask, but she also doesn’t know where to get bleach, so. She has to figure one of them out fast, and Hamid’s already in the den.

(It’s like when she had to ask Brock, “Is it bad I don’t like being a boy?”

“Nah. It sucks sometimes.”

“I mean, yeah, everything sucks _sometimes,_ but like. I don’t like being a boy _all the time._ Like, do you– does it ever feel like that? For you? Wishing you were a girl instead? But you can’t be?”

Brock — and gods, he was so small, so sick and starved and so full of decency that Sasha was scared to see get stripped clean out of his fragile bones — had just cocked his head and asked, “Why _can’t_ you be?”)

(It’s worse than that. Brock had her back, would always have her back. Hamid doesn’t need to protect her, he’s got himself to worry about.)

See, here’s how Sasha expects it to go:

“Hey, Hamid, do you mind getting me some bleach for my hair?”  
“Hm? Oh, no, of course not! Um, would you like for me to help you with—”  
“Nah, no thank you, it’s fine. I got it.”  
“Oh. Um, okay!”  
…   
“Oh, did you mean now?”  
“...yeah?”  
“Sorry, yes, I can– I can do that. Give me a moment.”)

See, here’s what actually happens:

“Hey, uh, d’you wanna help me fix my hair?” Hamid blinks up at her. He looks her over carefully, and Sasha does her best not to fidget.

Very, very carefully, he asks, “What about it needs fixing?” Sasha almost snorts at that, but she holds herself back. _What about it needs fixing?_ It’s scraggly and mismatched and ugly, and Sasha should want it to be prettier. Sasha does want it to be prettier. Whatever. Same difference.

(It’ll separate her, she thinks, from Other London. From Barrett and the rest of her family with black hair.)

Sasha doesn’t want to turn around to show him, so she gestures vaguely. “There’s a bit in the back, right? S’like, all white and gross. I wanted to bleach the rest of it to match. The whiteness, not the grossness. I mean, my hair’s already pretty gross, but it’s sort of, like, a different kind of gross?” She shrugs. She doesn’t know if that was coherent, but she does know that Hamid can figure it out.

Hamid does. He stands up and says, “I think I saw an apothecary across the street. Would you like to come with me?” Sasha nods, and things are going really far off script, but she thinks she likes this version better.

* * *

Hamid chats up the shopkeep with the bottle in his hands, and he grabs some fancy-looking scissors, as well. “In case of split ends,” he explains under his breath, and Sasha nods like she has any idea what those are.

(There’s some little candies in a jar at the register, and Sasha nabs them for later. You never know when you might need a caramel.)

* * *

Sasha doesn’t _like_ having someone’s hands so close to her when she doesn’t even have her knives, but it’s fine. It’s Hamid. He can’t hurt her, he’s too small and too nice. Also, Sasha could totally take him in a fight, even without the knives. It doesn’t matter how much powerful magic you have bubbling in your skin when you’re really really squishy.

He sucks a breath through his teeth when he feels the damaged bit of her hair, bringing Sasha back into the present. “What?” Sasha asks, fidgeting with her trousers.

“It’s dead,” Hamid says, all sorry and mournful, “I don’t think I can fix it.”

Sasha shrugs, and then she has to quickly pull her undershirt back down. It’s one of the older ones, something she doesn’t mind getting bleach on. It’s from before she knew how to properly be _Sasha,_ though, tight to her chest, and she doesn’t like the way it shows her autopsy scar. “That’s alright,” she says carelessly, “just break the rest of it, but not as bad.” Hamid is behind her, stood barefoot with gloves and the bleach while she sits cross-legged in the shower, so she can’t see his face, but she knows it’s twisting with concern. _“What,”_ she asks again after he’s silent for a long moment.

He makes a slightly guilty noise, and Sasha can hear him taking a small step backwards. “Sasha, to make it less noticeable, I’d have to bleach the rest of your hair dead, a-and that would make all of it feel gross and brittle like this bit. Unless I bleached it, and then– well, I could borrow Azu’s clippers and shave off some of this—” he flicks at it, where Sasha’s hair has gotten more than halfway down to her shoulders— “and it wouldn’t be so obviously dead until it all grew back in.” Sasha frowns.

She reaches back and curls her fingers through the back of her hair, a bit to the right of where it gets all brittle and wrong. “Is there– like, do you have to cut it? That’s not very… I mean, I worked a long time getting it this long, yeah? I don’t wanna just chop it all off again.” Hamid slips around in front of her and puts a hand on her shoulder. The rubber of the glove is odd against her bare (scarred) skin. His face is pinched with something like worry, or maybe pity, and Sasha pinches her own in annoyance so he doesn’t see what she’s really thinking. 

(Sasha is a girl, and girls have long hair. Well, not Azu, but Azu is soft and caring and _pink_ in the way that Sasha doesn’t think she ever could be, so it cancels out. Sasha worked really really hard to keep her hair long instead of chopping it all off when it started tickling at the back of her neck, making it feel like she didn’t have any insight to the air behind her, giving her a brand new blindspot. She’s not gonna cut it now. She’s gonna let it get longer, because she’s a girl, and girls have long hair. That’s just how it is. And when it gets long enough, she can put it all into a ponytail or a bun or braid or something, and that’ll fix the perception problem. Probably.)

Hamid frowns at her. “Not all of it,” he says. “Just the bottom bit. The top can stay long, and I’ll just make it fade into the length at the top. It’ll probably even be more manageable that way.” Sasha grimaces. She shouldn’t care more about manageability than about looking nice, even if she doesn’t want people looking at her. But she does have to admit, having it be long at the top, and still being girly while be easier to deal with sounds _really nice._ Hamid doesn’t see her change of heart, though, and he quickly backpedals, “Of course, if you don’t want to—”

“Nah,” Sasha interrupts. It should be fine. Just a little bit won’t be too bad. It’ll be easier, and it’ll probably feel nice in the way it did when it was short, when she would leap from fence to fence, never letting Brock catch up with her. It’ll still be long, though. Like she should want it to be. Like she does want it to be. Whatever. Same difference. “Just the bottom bit s’alright. Can you bleach the top too, though? So I’m not spotty or nothing?” Hamid makes a face before nodding his head.

“Yes, that’s fine.” Sasha’s going to ask, and then she decides that she doesn’t care. Hamid goes back behind her, and he starts shaking the little tin of chemical fiercely. Sasha sighs in an attempt to calm herself down. There’s nothing to worry about. Hamid is small, squishy, and soft in so many different ways that Sasha would need an extra hand to count them all. Sasha could take him, but Hamid wouldn’t make her.

* * *

The bleach smells bad, but in a good way. 

It’s a weird, chemically burning sort of smell, the kind you feel in your nose, the kind that almost makes your eyes water, and it’s awful. But it’s familiar, too. Sasha’s had to bleach a lot of clothes to get the bloodstains out. This is familiar territory, chemical-y burning smells, and it’s almost soothing. 

(Sasha has a lot of memories from Other London, and most of them are terrible, now that she knows what a childhood is supposed to look like, but some of them give her this soft glow of nostalgia more deadly than any counterfeit gold. Some of them are Brock, and even though they’re tainted by Mr Ceiling’s sickly green light, Sasha couldn’t make herself forget those no matter how much it might benefit her. 

Brock was always the one who bought the non-dangerous chemicals, with a soft little smile and hunched shoulders, explaining that he was trying to make something _big_ for The Family. Sasha always snuck around back and nabbed the more serious things they couldn’t do without, and she and Brock would snark at each other later over messily-constructed bomb casings as they tried to make a bomb big enough to blow open the roof of Other London so they could go explore Upper London’s sunshine.)

The memories and the chemical smell distracts her from Hamid’s tiny little hands messing around near-but-not-quite-on her head for a bit, so that’s definitely nice.

Not that Sasha isn’t grateful for him doing this. She knows that Hamid could have left her on her own to totally mess up her hair, but he didn’t. Because he’s nice. And Sasha trusts him, because she has to, because they’ve been working together for forever and he hasn’t tried to kill her once, even if he’s accidentally nearly gotten her killed a lot. But someone so close, just messing with Sasha’s hair like that, when she doesn’t even have her knives? It sets off all of the alarm bells in Sasha’s head, and she’s twitching to get away from the capital-T Threat that she knows, rationally, Hamid isn’t.

Sasha picks at the fabric of her trousers. “Almost done,” Hamid assures her.

“You’ve been saying that for the past five hours.”

“For the past thirty minutes. Your hair is very thick, and I’m trying not to touch you too directly.”

Sasha makes a confused face at the bathroom wall in front of her. “Why not? Doesn’t that make it harder to bleach it?”

Hamid hums noncommittally. “Yes, but I know direct touch makes you uncomfortable. Also, I don’t want to get stabbed?” Sasha snorts a surprised laugh. Hamid makes a very distressed sound. “Sasha! Don’t move, you’ll spray bleach everywhere!”

* * *

The shower smells weird when Sasha washes all the bleach out of her hair. It smells like watered-down bombs, the kind Singed-Hair Bobby used to help her and Brock make behind sheds they weren’t supposed to go in. It smells a little like water vapour, and a lot like pilfered soap. Sasha doesn’t know how shampoo works, or how conditioner works with it (conditioning for what?) so she just mixes them together in her palms and scrubs at her hair until no more chemically-smelling grit is stuck there.

When she towels off and puts her undershirt and sweatpants back on, she looks in the mirror.

And her hair is orange.

Not white.  
Not blonde.  
Not silver.

_Orange._

“Hamid,” she calls, “you messed up!”

* * *

Hamid didn’t mess up, it just takes multiple tries to bleach black hair.

Unless you’re an evil, gross-smelling magic puddle, apparently.

(Stupid puddle.)

* * *

Hamid is being very careful with the razor. Sasha knows he’s probably a little scared of Sasha freaking out, or of cutting her, but it’s still nice. He’s actively not hurting her, and she trusts it to stay like that, which is. New. And weird. And kinda scary? “I used to cut my own hair,” he says, apropos of absolutely nothing, “for a while, at least. I didn’t want my parents to find out that I had gotten a men’s haircut with their money.”

Sasha can imagine it. A little (little-_er)_ Hamid with a pair of scissors, sitting in some fancy room. But then, “Why would they care? You _are_ a man. Like, a really little one who wears a lot of makeup and cries more than anyone I’ve ever met before, but—”

“They didn’t know that,” Hamid interrupts. Probably for the best. Saying things about someone that they don’t necessarily want to hear while they’ve got something sharp a few inches from your neck isn’t the best plan.“At the time, they’d just sent their youngest daughter off to University. They had no idea I was _Hamid_ yet, and I wanted to keep it that way.”

Sasha freezes. “Oh,” she says. “That’s… you… I didn’t know.” Hamid does the verbal equivalent of a shrug. More bleached hair falls onto Sasha’s shoulders. “I, uh. I’m kinda like that. Except the other way around.” The razor continues scraping away bits of Sasha’s hair that she worked so hard to grow out.

“Is that why you didn’t want to cut it?”

Sasha shrugs, and a few bleached locks fall off of her shoulders. “Dunno. Maybe? Girls are supposed to have long hair, so…”

Hamid hums again, sounding concerned, but he doesn’t actually say anything for a while. 

He accidentally nicks the back of Sasha’s ear and she hisses. “Sorry! Sorry, I just. I’m a bit distracted, I guess.” Sasha shrugs again. The razor doesn’t move. “Girls are supposed to do a lot of things,” Hamid says carefully, like he thinks Sasha is on a hair-trigger. “And boys are supposed to do a lot of different things. But I’ve never really seen the problem with doing neither, or both, or the opposite of what is expected.” The razor starts moving again, and Sasha thoughtfully sticks her tongue into the gap where her tooth used to be.

Sasha reaches up and twirls a bit of her long (too-long?) hair in between her forefinger and thumb. “D’you reckon you could snip off a bit? At the top? Like, not much, just, uh. The splintered bits.”

“Split ends.”

“Yeah, them.”

Another scrap of white hair falls onto the tiled shower floor as Hamid finishes shaving the back of her head. He reaches out and snags the fancy scissors from on top of the sink. “I think that’s manageable,” Hamid says, and Sasha can hear the smile in his voice.

* * *

Azu gasps. “Oh! Your hair is shorter!” Sasha shrugs, shoulders coming all the way up to her ears in embarrassment. Azu beams. “I like it,” she says softly, like she doesn’t want to scare Sasha away, “it looks good.” 

(Azu likes it.)

Sasha looks at the ground and mumbles, “Yeah, well, s’Hamid that did it,” even as she smiles to herself.

Grizzop cocks his head. “Can I fuzz it?” Sasha furrows her eyebrows at him. He sits up and mimes ruffling someone’s hair. “Make it fuzzy,” he explains, standing up on the couch, “can I fuzz it?” Sasha bends down, and Grizzop gleefully tousles her carefully-styled hair. Bits of silver fluff scatter into the air, and Grizzop snickers delightedly. “It’ll probably make covering it up easier,” he says, “in your cloak and things.” He’s squinting proudly, like this is a very good decision that Sasha has made.

(Grizzop likes it, too.)

Sasha nods in assent. It is a good decision. There’s cold air on the back of her head, and Sasha forgot how much more alert that makes her feel. She blows back some bang that’s made it into her face. “Yeah, it’ll be… tactically optimal,” she agrees slowly, using bigger words so she doesn’t have to use feeling-words.

Grizzop makes a little ‘hmph’ of satisfaction before dropping back down onto the couch.

Hamid seems a bit distraught at the lack of fancy styling, (Hamid seems a bit distraught about most things, these days.) but he smiles really really bright when Sasha lets him brush a bit of it back into a tiny ponytail that keeps it out of her face.

(Sasha thinks she likes it more than all of them combined.)


End file.
